Eh, I know I probably shouldn’t but I tend to give people who lived through WW2 a little bit of leeway on being stupid about this sort of thing.

Professionalism or not, being BFFs with Scalia is highly suspect.

OMG...David the Gnome had beds like that and I so wanted to create a bed like that when I grew up.

That’s such a straw man argument. The natural response of a child crying and being stressed when it is separated from adults is literally an evolutionary response to keep the child ALIVE.

OMG, this sounds brilliant! If it ain’t broke....

It’s...not the best behavior.

It’s not that it messes up the baby teeth, it’s that the lower face, jaw, and palate are still growing and forming. Always having the thumb in there can cause an “open bite” and speech or even breathing issues that are really difficult to remediate. (Source: I’m a speech therapist and my mom is an orthodontist.)

I had a bad time potty training my kids. If I left them naked, they would destroy their colons and bladders holding it in rather than breaking down and using the toilet. I finally hit on the answer: I told them that only children, not babies, could use the computer. Babies used diapers. Children used the toilet.…

My wife gets all the credit for being a good mom. I’m just a dad who loves being a daddy and a husband.

I have friends who sleep-trained their kids to sleep through anything, but that also means they sleep anywhere. When they’re tired, they just sleep. At the table, on the floor, in a puppy pile in the corner of the bedroom...

Nope. It’s very weird in most cultures. About 70% of the world sleeps with their child in their bed.

My parents did the same to me, but with beautiful Barbie roller skates. Those skates were so magnificent. Well worth that long month :)

The answersfrom the specialists annoy me. I have a 6 year old, and though she was a “good sleeper” as a baby, and continues to be a kid who needs a lot of sleep, there’s been periods where she’s scared or whatever and willing to spend the whole night screaming in order to get what she wants (staying with us). It’s…

Eh, I don’t know. We tried a whole bunch of different things with our kids “musical beds,” we called it, and then eventually just bought a king-sized bed so either kid could climb in bed with us in the middle of the night with very little (if any) disturbance. Both kids were fully sleeping through the night in their…

Most countries in the world don’t sleep train and many think the concept of “cry it out” is an abhorrent practice, close to child abuse. Some kids work well with sleep training, but it certainly isn’t “natural” in any way for a child to be left alone to sleep.  

YUP. My brother sucked his thumb incessantly. Like, up to the age of four. My parents were worried about his teeth, etc. They walked past a power wheels car (the kind you actually “drive” with a battery, etc) in the store, he freaked out over it, and they said that you can’t drive if your thumb is in your mouth.

I’m assuming that is a part of why doctors et al want these issues to be addressed earlier rather than later.

My parents apparently had similar trouble with me. So they bought me a beautiful canopy bed with beautiful pink bedding (5 year old cisgender, gender conforming girls love that shit) and when they caught me sleeping on the floor in front of their bedroom door, threatened to send it back to the store if I didn’t start…

Parenting is a continuous exercise in picking your battles.

Holy shit. I’m not a parent so I’m wholly unqualified to comment with advice, but... I remember being six. I have clear memories of first grade. I can’t imagine remembering something like that.